


Dear Stranger

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: 25 Days of Damerey [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 25 Days of Damerey, Engineer Rey, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Letters, Lonely souls, Modern AU, Postcard Exchange, Veteran Poe, holiday fluff, long distance, switching POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 22:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16982643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Poe and Rey sign up for a postcard exchange around the holidays; they never could have imagined that an actual friendship (and maybe something more) would have come from it.





	Dear Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently postcard exchanges are a real thing!
> 
> In this AU, Poe and Rey signed up to an anonymous postcard exchange and received each other; they sent a postcard at the same time, and started writing to each other. 
> 
> (** is a POV switch)

“ _Hey, folks, we don’t anticipate any more bumpiness - clear skies from here to Miami. Enjoy the ride._ ”

As far as she can tell, squinting at the little in-flight map on the back of the seat in front of her, the plane is somewhere over...Texas. She thinks. Geography had always been kind of a bust in school.

The light overhead indicating that seatbelts should remain fastened dings pleasantly and shuts off, and Rey’s neighbor, a quiet woman in her thirties who’d popped headphones in about two minutes into taxiing, excuses herself to use the restroom. Rey peers out the window - her stomach swooping slightly from the very thought of flight, all the physics that went into it - before reaching for her duffel bag, tucked securely away in front of her.

She sets the tattered thing in her lap and zips open the side pocket; out comes the much-read bundle of postcards and letters. Rey selects the one that says _Greetings from Miami Beach!,_ dated December 26, 2017, and reads the now-familiar message inside.

_Dear Stranger,_

_My name is Poe Dameron. I’m a former pilot living in Miami, Florida._

_I guess I’m writing because I’m looking for something to cheer myself up. My last tour ended - badly - about three months ago, and my life’s been pretty much mandated physical therapy and watching game show reruns with my dad. So maybe I’m just craving some human connection. I don’t know. I’m no philosopher, Arizona._

_I hope you’re having a great December. What do you do for the holidays? ( Look at me, ending with a question, in the hopes that I’ll get a response)._

_Sincerely,_

_Poe_

It had been an interesting postcard - the writing cramped to fit all the words on the backside of the card - and Rey had felt bad at the time that her own initial postcard to him had been so short. But, luckily, Poe had marked “willing to continue exchanging letters” on his application to the exchange, so they’d continued their correspondence throughout 2018.

**

Poe shifts in his seat and eyes the Arrivals board with mild ire. Flight 2187 had been delayed three times - something about freak storms over Louisiana - and he’d still gotten to the airport almost an hour early.

He rifles through the inside pocket of his worn leather jacket and pulls out his stack of postcards and letters, which have served as his lifeline for a year. The bundle is tied together using string, and Poe unties it with one hand before pulling out the one on bottom, the very first one.

It’s postmarked December 26, 2017 - the very same day he’d sent his, in a stroke of utter coincidence - and he smiles at the chicken scratch handwriting.

_Dear Postcard Partner,_

_How are you?_

_My name is Rey Smith; I’m a college student from Jakku, AZ, but I go to school in Tucson. And before you ask, it’s Rey as in Rey, not Rey as in Raymond. I don’t want to accidentally catfish anyone with my absurd first name._

_While I study engineering, in my free time I like to fix up old cars and race them. What do you do for fun? If you’re from Miami, you probably like going to the beach. Can you believe I’ve never seen the ocean?_

_Happy Holidays,_

_Rey Smith_

Thankfully, Rey Smith from Jakku-and-Tucson had marked that she was willing to continue exchanging postcards, as evidenced by the stack of letters in Poe’s lap. He smiles down at them, pulling out the next one, and flipping the first one upside down on the crappy vinyl seat next to him.

A group of young men and women walk past him, in their ACUs. Poe nods at them respectfully, and they nod back before resuming their cheerful conversation. He eyes their heavy luggage, and his heart twinges - he hopes they’re heading home, and not heading off somewhere unknown. He’s spent too many Christmases far from his family.

**

Rey’s seat companion returns a few minutes later and settles back in. “Is it okay if I turn the overhead light on?” Rey asks, and the woman shrugs and nods, still not speaking. Rey clicks it, and the postcard in her hands is illuminated.

There’s a picture of a lush, beautiful jungle on the front, with _muchos saludas de la república de Guatemala!_ emblazoned in the bottom right corner.

She thinks this one has her favorite image, if not her favorite words.

_Dear Rey,_

_It’s nice to know your name - writing Dear Stranger felt, well, kind of strange._

_I hope you don’t mind that I waited a while to respond. I knew my dad would be traveling to Guatemala for a couple weeks, and I wanted to have a fancy new postcard, to demonstrate how worldly I am._

_As for your question: You got it exactly right. I go to the beach as often as I can. It’s a luxury I try not to take for granted, but I’m sure I do on some level. But, Arizona, huh? Are you a big fan of the desert? I’ve been to a few deserts in my time, and I can’t say I’m a fan, exactly._

_Happy New Year,_

_Poe_

“Am I a big fan of the desert.” Rey huffs a laugh to herself. “Ugh, as if.”

**

Rey’s next couple postcards were much more forthcoming. While never exactly open, at least, not at first, they were always cheerful and written with a sort of acerbic wit that Poe could appreciate, if not replicate.

And, despite there being some ten years between them, Poe had automatically felt a sort of kinship with this girl, particularly in her fourth postcard, from early March.

_Dear Poe,_

_I’m so happy to hear that your father’s surgery went well. I was thinking about him a lot last week, and you, and I’m glad things are good._

_Things here are garbage - not surgery garbage, but more like ‘I’ll be out of college in about two months and have no idea what I’m doing with my life’ garbage;. Sometimes I feel like I’m screaming into the void and/or staring into the abyss. And, you know, the quote always says the abyss stares back, but I think the abyss took one look at my life and was like “mmm pass.” Can’t say that I blame it._

_I loved your last postcard - is that place actually real? I didn’t think there was that much green in the whole galaxy. Puts my little cactus garden to shame._

_-Rey_

**

_“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re beginning our descent into Miami, so please fasten your seatbelts and lock your trays. The local time in Miami, Florida is 9:32 p.m., and the temperature is 68 degrees.”_

Rey wonders what the humidity is going to feel like - Poe always complains about it in his letters, saying that it makes his curly hair even more untameable. Rey touches her stringy, fine hair thoughtfully and imagines what Poe’s hair would feel like. She immediately blushes at the thought.

Her hands are shaking as she flips through to Poe’s postcard from May 4, 2018.

_Dear Sunshine,_

_I’m sticking with it. It’s a good nickname. Because, no matter how sunny Miami is, nothing cheers me up more than seeing I got a postcard from you._

_Things here are looking up. My friend found me a job, not a big job, but a job job. It doesn’t involve too many things that I hate. Okay, so it actually sounds great. I’ll be teaching art to senior citizens. I kept saying my art wasn’t that good, but eventually my friend said that they can’t see too great anyway (which sounds like ageism, but)._

_I’ve been wondering - do you want to switch to letters from postcards? You can say no, of course, but I’m running out of ways to condense what I’m thinking into this tiny space._

_Think about it?_

_Poe_

**

Poe had been so nervous asking Rey to start sending letters - which was bizarre because he’d asked for a girl’s number before even knowing their last name in the past. But something about this felt fragile, delicate, and he didn’t want to threaten it with a spectacular blunder.

His relief had been physical when Rey’s response had been a thick, messily addressed envelope, and not a postcard.

In that letter, Rey had expressed her own excitement to write about things that couldn’t fit in a postcard, and no matter how many times he reads it, Poe gets tears in his eyes at one particular line: _No one’s ever really given a damn about what I have to say before, so thank you. You can’t know what it means to me to have you to talk to._

There are some other tear-worthy moments in the letter, for instance, where she talks about graduating in May and no one had been there for her. He traces those letters here in the present and imagines how hard it must have been for her to write about, and he whispers to himself, “I would have been there for you, Sunshine.”

Her letter closes with her anxiety over job prospects, and the mention of her current job as a mechanic, a job she’d held throughout college to pay for expenses.

**

They’re circling the airport now, and Rey’s stomach is a mess of butterflies, but she swears these butterflies have teeth or knives or something fierce.

She can’t wait to see Florida - mostly for Poe, if she’s being honest. Her postcard partner’s taking her on college tours, as his letter towards the end of the summer said he’d be happy to show her around if she were ever in the panhandle.

Even though she waited a few months to take him up on his offer, Rey still frets that she took him up on his offer too soon, or too seriously. _What if he didn’t actually want her to come? What if he was just being, as always, cheerful, sweet, and polite? What if he doesn’t even want to be her postcard partner any more, and she shows up at the airport only to not find him waiting for her at the gate?_

While the anxiety crashes over her in waves, Rey has to admit that even if Poe isn’t there (and she’s prepared for it, she is, and not because she doesn’t think Poe is dependable, but because she doesn’t think anyone is really dependable, an opinion she formed right around being abandoned at a fire station when she was barely old enough to know A from Z), she’ll still be fine.

In his letter from November, Poe told her that he admired her bravery, her tenacity, and her work ethic - this was right after she told him she’d be happy to fly out to him, despite having never met him, nor left the state of Arizona.

Poe couldn’t fly out to her, he’d admitted in the letter - he suffered from PTSD, something she’d suspected from things he’d written in the past, and something confirmed by his gutwrenching letter where he detailed what had happened to his friends and himself -

While Rey never put it into her response, she wants to tell Poe that for her, the urge to survive had become second nature, that it was never an option to fail to survive.

It wasn’t quite the same as bravery.

**

 _“Flight 2187 from Phoenix, Arizona, is landing._ ”

Poe looks up from his least favorite letter - but one he still treasures, from the significance of it, the significance of Rey opening up about her childhood abuse, about the monstrous foster father, the starving, the bitter feeling of being abandoned. He’d known that Rey was strong, could sense it from her writing, her stories, hell, even her humor, but hearing that had made him curl up in bed and cry for a few hours.

He bundles the letters back together carefully and tucks them away reverently in his pocket once more, but not before pulling out the item that had been enclosed in Rey’s last letter.

Poe walks towards the line of sight of the Arrivals gate, and smiles down at the photo in his hand.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Slightly startled, Poe looks over at a kindly old woman who’s standing next to him, peering at the photograph. She smiles up at him warmly. “She’s beautiful.”

While he has no idea what to say to the woman’s question, he knows what to say in response to her observation. “I know.”

He’d known before the picture.

**

An impossibly handsome man smiles nervously up at Rey from the photo she’s gripping tightly. Her letters and postcards are stored carefully in her duffel once more, and the bag’s sitting across her lap; the duffel and her knees bounce wildly, but not from taxiing across the tarmac. No, Rey’s so anxious she might vibrate out of her own skin.

The man in the photo, Poe, her Poe, her postcard partner Poe, seems to have no idea that he’s stupidly attractive. His smile is almost regretful, his expression saying, _here I am,_ as he poses for the camera. The angle’s a little weird, and the lighting a little off - it’s a terrible selfie, so it’s even more annoying that he looks so good.

Rey can’t remember what the photo she’d sent him looked like. She’s just surprised she shows up on camera, honestly.

 _I hope he isn’t disappointed,_ she thinks to herself as she stands from her seat, taking advantage of a break in the flood of passengers disembarking the plane.

Immediately, she almost gets whacked in the face by the man who’d sat in front of her (who’d leaned his chair back as soon as he could, and sure, while Rey isn’t that big of a person, she does have long legs, thankyouverymuch) simply because he’d crammed his non-acceptable-dimensions luggage into the overhead compartment, and she considers whacking him back. But, then she might get arrested, or at least detained, or exiled from Miami, Florida, so she holds off.

 _I must really like Poe,_ she thinks to herself almost hysterically. She doesn’t think there’s anyone else in her life she'd avoid a fight for.

Her duffel bag is clutched to her chest like a shield, the sad, tattered item she’d owned since she was twelve and one of her nicer foster homes had bought her something to lug her stuff around in. Rey breathes in the slightly musty but very familiar scent in to calm her nerves, and she continues shuffling forward along the aisle, the flight attendant at the end bidding the passengers farewell a fixed point. Once she reaches that woman, she’ll be that much closer to Poe.

“Have a nice night,” the flight attendant says, beaming.

“Thank you,” Rey thinks she says in response, but her vision’s tunneling, and she’s considering crawling up into the overhead compartments and flying back to Arizona. But that’s absurd - she’s been looking forward to meeting Poe, daydreaming over it even, for months now. There’s no doubt in her mind that her feelings for Poe are more than strictly platonic-postcard-exchange level of feelings, and given the length and depth of her letters from him, she doesn’t think it’s entirely unreturned.

So why is she so nervous?

Rey forces herself to breathe calmly, and she rationalizes that perhaps she’s just excited, and full of anticipation, and her body’s confusing that with soul-crushing, life-ruining anxiety. That’s probably it. Definitely. Her heart pounds in her throat - she’s really going to meet him.

The passengers around her pick up the pace, glad to be free from the plane after three irritating delays and four hours in the air.

Rey walks down the ramp, not as quickly as she’d thought she would, but she thinks to herself that she wants to make each step count, the steps before she meets Poe, because every step after will be different.

**

Poe stands right in front of the arrivals, fretting that he doesn’t have flowers or a big sign or balloons. He’s seen at least a dozen boyfriends and girlfriends, wives and husbands, greeting each other with gifts and cute things since he got here.

He’s about to meet the woman he loves, and he has nothing to show for it.

There’s a massive crowd dispersing from the gate, heading left and right and towards the various exits, and Poe eyes the crowd nervously, scanning for the face that’s been smiling at him from a 5x7 for a month now. _I’m really about to meet her._

The crowd thins noticeably, and Poe’s heart is reaching DEFCON 1. He thinks the service dog passing by him on his right can hear his heartbeat, judging by the worried look he gets from the German Shepherd. His eyes flit around, and then -

He sees her.

Dark jeans, nice sweater, hair in three buns, scarf -  Rey’s here, and she looks exhausted, and she’s really here. Sunshine, Arizona, Dear Stranger - and then _she_ sees _him_ , and her face lights up.

When she smiles, Poe thinks that he would have crossed any distance to see her.

His feet start moving before his brain can (overridden as it is by his ridiculous heart), and she walks towards him, too. It flashes by in an instant, and it takes place over the course of several infinities, and he knows life is never going to be the same.

Poe pulls up short of hugging her - because God, he wants to, it’s all he can think about, actually holding her, but for all he knows she hates being hugged - and rubs his neck, smiling awkwardly. “Hi.” He garbles the word, and clears his throat, hoping that she found his butchered greeting charming.

“Hello.” If anything, her smile grows wider, which Poe takes as a very good sign (and also, her smile hits him something fierce).

“It’s good to -” “I’m so happy to-”

They’d spoken at the same time, and they both laugh shyly and duck their heads.

Then, Rey holds her hand out, and Poe takes it tentatively, and it doesn’t feel like lightning coursing through his veins. It’s not a shock at all - it’s a settling.

It feels like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Day 12 (a day late) of Damerey December!


End file.
